“Andrew… Victoria says she’s running twenty minutes late.”
Andrew forced a smile.
“Hair trouble?”
Mark hesitated. “That’s what she said.”
Andrew swallowed the unease. Brides ran late. It was normal. Ritual.
Except twenty minutes became forty.
Then ninety.
Guests shifted, whispered, leaned toward one another as if gossip were the real ceremony.
“Do you think she’s coming?”
“After his accident, I wouldn’t marry—”
Andrew gripped his armrests. He had learned to live with pity disguised as politeness. But today—today—he expected dignity.
His mother, Margaret Cole, approached in an elegant navy dress, eyes red from days of claimed “allergies.”
“Honey… are you sure about this?”
“Mom… not now.”
“She’s been distant,” Margaret whispered. “The excuses. The way she looks at you when—”
“Enough.”
Andrew hated the way heads turned. He hated being watched like something fragile.
“Victoria loves me,” he said, forcing the words into armor. “She stayed when everyone else ran.”
Margaret didn’t argue. She squeezed his shoulder and stepped back, tears finally visible.
Then Andrew saw Emily again.